Posted
by
timothy
on Tuesday December 08, 2009 @10:21AM
from the and-who-will-you-be-visiting? dept.

Lord Duran writes "The Israeli Knesset approved a bill that will require every Israeli citizen to submit a visual scan of their face and a biometric scan of their fingerprints to a national database. I, for one, fail to see how this is anything but evil. TFA mentions the Israeli census was breached — I'd like to point out, for comparison, that it's still freely available on your peer-to-peer file sharing network of choice."

What happens when the system is compromised? How do I change my password?

Or worse, what if Osama Bin Laden (or any other terorist) get's to insert his bio information into an Israeli citizen's profile? Now, Bin Laden has a valid Bio-Informatic ID in Israel. If he shaved off his beard, I couldn't tell him apart. It's been years since I've seen a photo of him. He'd get away with being Bernie Horowitz.

Bin Laden, is what Donald Trump calls "a member of the lucky sperm club" (Trump himself is a member) - someone who was born into a very rich family. Now, I don't know about you folks, but if I were born into a rich family I'd get into the family business, become a full-time Linux hacker, do charity work - like help Palesinians maybe?, or even try being a jet set playboy. NOT killing civilians to get the Satan out of the Holy Land.

Depends how the information is to be used. I don't have, and never had, any input into the information on my passport, so how do I "change my password" when it comes to my passport?

Someone could misuse the ubiquity of this information by trying to make it a "password"; and if so, that's a technical flaw in their security. As for the ID database program in general, the obvious flaws are based in privacy, not technology.

I don't understand the problem. What info are you looking to put on your passport? You want to change your birthday? Your location of birth? You get to select the picture. You can change your name. There's no other information on there.

Regardless passports can be rendered invalid and reissued. How do you do that with bone structure?

Every country does that. It's called an ID card. As far as fingerprints, I've had to submit my fingerprints like 10 times for various services, clearances, not to mention immigration documents.

This isn't really news. Even if it's a 3D laser-scan, that's really not different from a photograph nowadays.

As much as it bothers me to have centralized databases of ANYTHING, if there is anything that needs a centralized database, it's identification. I'm a privacy freak and I am not sure that this bothers me, especially in the context of a country that can claim the dubious honor of being the most likely terrorist target in the industrialized world.

Well, the process would condition the population to accept any invasive procedure. Maybe that is the plan. This is what decades of living in fear will do to a population. The more the citizens are afraid, the more power they give to the government. Why would a government make peace under such circumstances?

This is what decades of living in fear will do to a population. The more the citizens are afraid, the more power they give to the government.

Hi, I'm an Israeli. I'm not sure about that last bit about "Why would a government make peace under such circumstances?", since that's a separate and extremely involved issue, but you got it right with the above quote. Most of the people I've talked to didn't even twitch at the mention of the new biometric database. News sources who are pointing to this as a very big exception compared other countries are met with feedback comprising of, mostly, "so what?" (when I say feedback I mean on online news sites, talkbacks and the like).

We're used to armed guards at every publicly accessible building, which includes malls, theaters, larger apartment complexes, and of course any government-run institutions. A big part of the police's job here is patrolling in search of signs of terrorism, not crime. We've sat in too many shelters, heard too many missile alarms go off, and seen too many scorched remains of explosions to give a damn about a photo and a fingerprint.

And yes, the Israeli census has been hacked -- not once, but several times. You can search and find several versions according to the date of retrieval.
Personally, I agree with most of the opinions I've head voiced around me -- who cares? Anyone can find my address, phone number, and family tree through the leaked census. Now they'll have my picture, which they could easily find elsewhere, and my fingerprint, which is something that they'll have of every citizen. If they do use the fingerprint to try to access something, they'll likely need additional information, because it will be *known* that this has become publicly available information.

There's a proverb in some european languages which translates roughly as: "you don't worry about a thief in the backyard when your house in on fire".

This law is "risky, superfluous, and expensive" and your apathy (and the apathy of all others with the same "don't care" attitude around you) saddens me deeply.

The argument Israel never regarded my personal information with care, so who cares if I give it some more to play around with carelessly is a really stupid argument. The premise of that argument should lead you to the opposite conclusion. You should worry more when such a careless regime asks for more power from the citizens i

As much as it bothers me to have centralized databases of ANYTHING, if there is anything that needs a centralized database, it's identification. I'm a privacy freak and I am not sure that this bothers me, especially in the context of a country that can claim the dubious honor of being the most likely terrorist target in the industrialized world.

Why?

Under what circumstances would a "SELECT * from PEOPLE where EYES = 'blue'" actually lower terrorism target vectors?

"Show me your papers" has worked just fine for every repressive regime to date. I fail to see any need to centralize this information, particularly when you can attach arbitrary penalties to lack of said ID. So it isn't as if ID will magically become unnecessary. You'll still have to have it, and it will still get used. And this data will ALSO get used. Now we get to ask, in what way?

It is the mathematical function that identifies your facial features as your own to a very high degree of probability.

Every country does that. It's called an ID card. As far as fingerprints, I've had to submit my fingerprints like 10 times for various services, clearances, not to mention immigration documents.

Your fingerprints are not in one big database that can be hacked (as others have been hacked before) along with the rest of your entire country. If you've given your fingerprints 10 times, I hope you're sure you gave them to people who can keep them a secret. You can't really change them later.

As much as it bothers me to have centralized databases of ANYTHING, if there is anything that needs a centralized database, it's identification. I'm a privacy freak and I am not sure that this bothers me, especially in the context of a country that can claim the dubious honor of being the most likely terrorist target in the industrialized world.

Think of someone using this database, along with live CCTV footage from a railway station (say, a p

All citizens of a country which isn't exactly liked by its neighbours are placed on a single database. Database leaks. Any future authority which doesn't like Israelis for any reason can now reliably identify them at crossing points, when travelling, after an invasion, etc.

You are right, it is only a step beyond a driver's license database - which is a bad idea to begin with. When the US introduced a national driver's license database with the REAL ID Act, the reaction here was just as negative, so don't pretend that we are being hypocritical.

Speaking of which, starting January first I have to get a passport to travel within the US (by plane), because my state has not yet met the requirements of the REAL ID Act (and good for them even if it was for the wrong reasons). If the

RealID was a horrible idea, many states refused to do it...it is dead in the water as far as I can tell.

Nope, it was passed into law. All the states requested an extension, so the deadline for implementation was pushed back to the end of March 2008 and then again to the end of December 2009. Since then, 20 states have become compliant, 14 have passed legislation prohibiting their DMV departments from complying, and the remaining 16 are somewhere in between. The DHS has offered the 30 non-compliant states an extension till May 2011 provided they implement a certain number of the requirements. If they don't, then all the residents of those states will have need a passport to fly starting January 1st. I do have to wonder the DHS would really risk implementing this during holiday travels, but that is the plan as of now.

I got this info from our state's Real ID FAQ [state.nm.us](PDF) - it is probably on Wikipedia as well.

When I was born, my foot prints were put on the birth certificate, which is on file, for identification (my social security card validates against it). When I got my state ID, that had my picture. When I got my SBU clearance, my fingerprints and photo went on record.

It seems to me that the line in question is fictitious. The only question is the efficiency of the ID method, and the security of the database.

Having to go to the agency in question and file a request adds a barrier to the data that hopefully means it is only accessed when it is actually required. Having it all 'at your fingertips' means lots of unnecessary and/or unwanted access, at least potentially.

Every country strikes its between the privacy of its citizens and the security of its citizens. In Israel, due to its circumstances, the balance is more heavily tilted toward security over privacy. In every country of which I am aware, military service involves sacrificing some level of freedom and privacy. In Israel, almost every non-Arab citizen of the country serves in the army, and of course that service requires photographs, fingerprints, DNA sampling, etc. already. So this is not much different th

Since you have 22 years to think about it, please elaborate on how signing people up for drivers licenses and passports is similar to burning and looting their property, murdering them in the streets, and then rounding up the rest and sending them to concentration camps? I don't think that's what the Israeli government plans. If you don't like biometric databases that's fine, but at least add something intelligent to the discussion.

Since you have 22 years to think about it, please elaborate on how signing people up for drivers licenses and passports is similar to burning and looting their property, murdering them in the streets, and then rounding up the rest and sending them to concentration camps? I don't think that's what the Israeli government plans. If you don't like biometric databases that's fine, but at least add something intelligent to the discussion.

Good point. The funny thing is that if we consider the greater context, that's pretty much exactly what that particular government does to a certain segment of the population.

Same thoughts here. Your face is already effectively "public" - it's very easy to obtain and store, without you knowing. Fingerprints are only slightly more difficult (not to obtain, but to match with the person). If anyone wants such a database, they can have it already. In fact, I would be extremely surprised if special services of most industrial countries didn't have such databases already, with coverage way above 50% in the First World. If they don't, I dare say they aren't doing their job.

All citizens must be known to the government at all times.This leads to all citizens must be forced to carry identification at all times. Biometrics is a short-circuit around forcing people to carry ID papers 24/7. At present, I can walk out of the house without my wallet, and nobody can identify me without my permission. Not so with biometrics.

More to the point, it's a way of monitoring the populace. It assumes that everyone is a latent criminal, and needs to be watched.

While their actions and policies towards the Palestinians are pretty heinous, you can't just paint the whole society as evil. They have developed a verymodern society in the midst of their enemies and excel at many fields of science and literature.

You can blame the Jews for persecuting the Palestinians, but you can't say that everything they do is evil.

Not that I disagree with your sentiment (as a general rule you shouldn't try to label entire societies as good or evil) but how exactly is modernization, science, and literature 'not evil' by definition. Not to Godwin the discusion, but NAZI germany advanced the fields of human biology and engineering; so much so that their research is still used today (because it can't be ethically repeated).

Wash, rinse, repeat. This is why the illegal settlements are such a sore point in the issue; they are the mechanism by which Israel is stealing the entire area that was the Palestinian state. Just look at a map from 1948 and a map from today. If you

Just look at a map from 1948 and a map from today. If you have time, check the map every decade between, you'll see Israel increasing steadily in area.

Most of Israeli territorial gains were outcomes of wars, most of which they didn't trigger.

Six-Day War is arguable, but I can certainly see how moves by Arab countries, and specifically Egypt, were highly threatening at that point, and IMO, given the information that Israelis had then, and the consequences of their choices, preemptive attack was the only rational option they were left with; and, at the same time, Egypt could easily defuse the situation and prevent the war if Nasser had the desire to do so.

short historical recap: The land of Israel has been the homeland of the people of Israel (nowadays known as Jews) for about 3300 years. The Israelis had independence in the countery for almost 1000 years. The temple, the worldwide center of God worship, stood on the temple mount for a total of 830 years. There has been Israelis living in the land of Israel for over 2280 years, icluding the past 2 millenia. Hardly anyone lived there there in the 19th century. Then suddenly there's an increasing movement of Israelis and Arabs into the country, Arabs at higher numbers than Israelis so that by 1948 the Arabs in the country outnumber the Israelis 2 to 1. The Israelis mainly kept to themselves, but the Arabs attacked Israeli towns during their rebellion against the French in ~1921, and performed pogroms against the Israelis in many areas in the country in 1929. The Israelis established a self-defence organization called Hagana (which literally means "defense"). A group broke off called Etzel (which is an acronym for "Nation Military Organization") and a group broke off those called Lechi (acronym for "Warriors of the Liberty of Israel"). The Hagana only did self defence, but the Etzel and Lechi also retaliated and in some cases took the initiative in the hoatilities. in 1936 the Arabs rebelled against the British but have also targeted the Israelis until 1939, when the rebellion was quelched. in 1947 the UN decided to partition the western bank of Israel between the Arabs and the Israelis. Hostilities continued. Months later Israel declared independence, and two days later was attacked by 7 Arab countries, only 4 of which share borders with the state of Israel. Syria, Jordan, and Egypt absorbed the lands the UN allocated to the "Arab Country", a country which has never existed in the first place. The PLO was formed in 1964, and it's foundation was the first time anyone claimed the existence of a Palestinian nation.

And an Ironic anecdote: Palestine is an Arab mispronunciation of the Hebrew word Plishti, which in English means "Invader".

But I guess no one cares. Supporting the Invaders, whatever their identity and claims, is alway good when the people they are assaulting are Israeli.

PS I might have been off by a year or two here and there in the dates.

You call them terrorists, they call them freedom fighters. It's a matter of perspective. Get some.

Back in 1948 when Israel was declared independent, no one displaced. No one was kicked out. What did happen though was a bunch of racist "palestinians" who hated the Jews so much that they got up and left voluntarily.

Total misdirection; a typical tactic of the pro-Israel mob. In 1948 when Israel was dec

You call them terrorists, they call them freedom fighters. It's a matter of perspective. Get some.

I think you're a bit confused. There is nothing stopping a person from being a freedom fighter and a terrorist at the same time. The first term refers to why they're doing what they're doing. The second refers to how they do it.
So while Hamas may (it's rather questionable. but so are many other things) be fighting for freedom, how they do it (purposefully targeting, attacking and executing unarmed civilians) makes them terrorists.

That's every country, by the way. Look at how many countries were formed by, at one point in their history, by unjustly killing the natives. Almost all, if not all, of them. Might have been 300 years ago, might have been 100 years ago, might have been 50 years ago, but the only thing that separates Israel and every other country in that respect is time.

Hi! I’m going to move into my house, which you for some reason decided to move into after I was hauled off in the dead of night and imprisoned unjustly without trial or basis other than my race. I’ll even let you stay there, if you’ll agree to be a halfway-civil roommate. Sound good to you?

There was no Israel until a people ignored by the British (yes, the Brits, read up on Palestine at the end of WW II) in Palestine declared they were going to TAKE land and set up a state. No one strong enough was interested enough to take action. So in your example, if Israel had lost, they would deserve total subjugation? "Too bad?" No, I suspect they'd have been martyred instead.
Trouble with Israel is the same as with any country fought over for many centuries. Americans don't have the history, so

I thought about him a while back in my Jewish studies class (online gen-eds, gotta love 'em). There was a part dealing with antisemitism, about how it has evolved to into anti-Israeli sentiment to cover it's ass, so to speak, by taking the guise of a reasonable argument against a nation's policies, not pure racist hatred, because clearly there are two types of anti-Israel sentiment: reasonable and racist. Imagine if black people only made up a small enough percent of the population that 40% could live in one small area. Do you think the KKK and the neo-nazi skinheads would criticize that nation's policies, regardless? You know they would, and publicly, they'd do it under the guise of 'criticizing policy' but really, it would be racism. We all know it would be. Israel is the same way. Take a race that has historically been hated and but them in their own little country, guess what the racists say about it? Only now, they have a mask for their racism, they can claim that they're anti-Israel, not the antisemitic Jew hating racists that they really are.

I don't think criticism of Israel is all without merit. Yes, some of it is insane, like when people say the Israelis are monsters for defending themselves from terrorists who want to kill as many Israeli citizens as possible, but Israeli policy has, at times, not helped things, and that is worth criticizing. Israel has done, and does do, bad things. One of my Arabic professors presented very reasonable criticisms of Israel. Problem is, there's enough blame to go around when Israel's neighbors are supporting a group that launches rockets at Israeli civilians while hiding behind other civilians and using them as shields, so it is hardly unreasonable when Israel takes the precautionary principle, and a degree of overreaction on their part is sadly justified.

But I agree with you all the way, you're wasting your time if you argue with douchebag. I saw a bumper sticker the other day that read 'Hate is the ONLY enemy.' People like him, they hate. They are part of the problem. Israelis are not the enemy, Palestinians are not the enemy, Arabs are not the enemy, Iranians are not the enemy. People who hate [slashdot.org] are the enemy. There is so much antisemitism and islamophobia in that region and around the world trying to make itself look reasonable, it's disgusting. There's plenty about Israel you can debate, but not with an antisemite who thinks the Israeli people are evil and that a country were people are born and die and make their homes and lives shouldn't even have the right to exist.

Not everyone wants peace. They are the problem. They are the evil ones.

That's only half the story: shortly after his time as minister of the interior, he joined the board of directors of SAFE ID Solutions AG, a company specializing in - you guessed it - "integrated security solutions to the global ID market with systems optimized for new generation electronic documents".

You don't need a central database to have biometric passports/id cards. All you need is to store their hashes on the card and that would be compared to the person in question.This is the only thing required of a biometric card.

Why did you stop there? lets have the government tell us when we can meet our friends, what we must eat, what music we must listen to. Lets also burn any books with dangerous ideas in. Lets remove the word 'freedom' from the language and make it illegal to say it, that way people wont get dangerous ideas.

No, no.. you don't remove the word "freedom", you just slowly redefine it, so that being free means getting to vote for your government (provided it's for one of two identical parties), being able to say what you want (just so long as you don't say anyone that might offend any race, gender, sexual orientation, or disparage the troops), being able to go wherever you want (provided you carry enough documentation for the government to track your every move), being able to work where you want (so long as its f

The central location? The file cabinet in my home office. They only made one fingerprint card per kid, which they gave to us.Remember, this was in the early '90s, at the tail end of the child abduction hysteria (yeah, it's still around but not as strong).

We were told to keep the card, and put a small clip of the kids' hair into a mini-ziploc, and store it with the card.

No, for the most part you see people affected by political corruption supporting it. Every time you submit to any bureaucratic nonsense in a US State, like getting a driver's license, you are contributing to political corruption.

Ohio is one of my favorite examples. You need to pay (bribe) state legislators to be designated as a representative of the state so that you can pass out license plates and such. The job comes with some title like Deputy Bursar or some such - but it is by political appointment an

Yeah, I mostly agree with that. In a country like the US, though, it's difficult to come up with laws which are appropriate for the general population as well as the people who want to live off the grid, and those are important people to keep around. Israel is dealing with different constraints.

One possible answer to your question, is that there is no shortage of people who genuinely want to live in the "end times". There are several reasons why this is so, but I tend to think it's because their faith is particularly weak, and a big visible Revelations style conflict would go a long way to strengthening their faith.

Now, I'm not saying that you're one of these nuts. But if you move in "Wacko Christian Right" circles (your phrase, not mine) then it's possible you've met some people who think like th

But if you move in "Wacko Christian Right" circles (your phrase, not mine)

I moved out of those circles, but I still visit once in a while. The food is tasty!

I'm sure you are correct for a portion of the populace of faith who "want to live in the end times".

But I think an overwhelming preponderance is that they/we perceive that many of the element necessary to fulfill an "end times" are in place. Conversely, the elements in place are not sustainable, and anything which is not sustainable eventually ends. Who was the Great Prophet who said "Everything that has a beginning has a

Okay, first let's dispense with the concept of "prophecy". You say "I'm not saying this is Revelation 13:18 per se. It could be, it could NOT be. Who can know?" It's not, and we can all know, because there is no such thing as prophecy, because there is no such thing as magic.

Okay, now what there is, is prediction, especially insightful and informed prediction. It's hardly difficult to predict some things that will happen in the future, and the fact that thousands of years ago somebody said something about h

Indeed, and you can bet your ass I'll be opting-out next of any place that I have citizenship with. As it is, I just read yesterday about some 27 year old Chinese lady who was screwing up her own fingerprints [theregister.co.uk] (transplanting them from finger to finger) in order to try to fool Japanese biometric border scanners... Obviously these biometrics can be fooled. Next we'll be doing like in Space Quest 6 where Roger Wilco takes his robot pal's eyeball to fool the retinal scanner in the shuttle. My fear is that if

I don't know if you are Israeli, but keep in mind that Israel is dealing with vastly different constraints and parameters than the USA is. They are tiny, non-federal, surrounded by hostility, under constant thread of annihilation, less heterogeneous, less rural. Just because privacy lines are drawn at a certain legal point in Israel doesn't mean the same legal point would be appropriate in the USA.